Just like I always suspected it would, the NJ turnpike finally got me. The most stereotypical Jersey guy in an F-250 changed lanes into me on the way home from work tonight. After we got pulled over, and I’d assessed the damage to my car, I went to go talk to him, and he insisted that I had rear-ended him while guesting wildly with a lit cigar in his hand. You’ll note all the damage to my car is on the front passenger side quarter panel. As I don’t practice drifting on the NJTP, it makes his story kinda hard to believe. Thankfully the responding Officer agreed that his story was suspect and I’m fairly confident the accident report will be written in my favor. Damage was surprisingly light, and I really didn’t want to have to file a police report, but he insisted I was at fault and told me to call the State Police. So I did.

That missing piece of trim was attached to my car until today. Also I never used to have scratches on my wheel arch.

You can’t really see it in the photo, but the top of the arch is bent slightly out and up. Also a few more scratches at the front of the arch.

The wheel looks like it took the brunt of the impact. Those black marks aren’t grime. They may actually be his paint. There are a few new chips in the paint of the rim, but it looked to be structurally sound and the car drove home OK. I’ll give it a closer look tomorrow in the daylight.

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On top of that there is a pretty good scratch in the passenger side mirror, which got folded back against the car in the process of the accident. There might be damage to the wheel bearing, as the car had a slight shimmy after I pulled back onto the NJTP, but it went away after a mile or two, so it could have just been the tires flat spotting after sitting for an hour in 20F weather.

If I’m really lucky, he bent my tie rod, which I needed to replace anyway, but I don’t think he did as the car was still tracking straight on the remainder of the drive home.

Funnily enough, I see this guy driving on the turnpike once or twice a month and always though he was going to cause an accident one of these days. He tailgates the ever-living crap out of people and is always making questionable or downright dangerous lane changes. The truck has a rather distinctive spinning yellow light on the roof(I assume for construction or something like that) so he’s one of the few vehicles I actually recognize.